The Bone Labyrinth (48 page)

Major Sergeant Kwan knelt over a body sprawled facedown beside the aircraft. A shotgun rested a meter from the figure’s outstretched arm.

Kwan straightened. “I had no choice but to take out the pilot.”

She frowned. It was disappointing. She had hoped to interrogate the man before dispatching him. But ultimately it wouldn’t matter.

“The targets are already gone?” she asked.

He nodded and stood, but not before she noted him pocketing a locket of hair, a trophy he must have cut from the pilot’s head. With each death, the Black Crow always demanded his toll.

She didn’t scold him for it and stayed focused on the task at hand. “How far ahead are they?”

“Best estimate. No more than forty minutes.”

So, closer . . . but not close enough
.

Still, she was content with their progress. The team could have come by helicopter and made better time, but the noise would have carried far, alerted their quarry. It was worth the sacrifice of minutes to maintain their cover.

“We’ve already disabled the aircraft,” Kwan said. “The enemy won’t be leaving the way they arrived.”

They won’t be leaving at all.

She stared off into the shadowy forest. Her team would go dark from here, moving forward with night-vision gear.

“Have Zhu and Feng head out,” she ordered.

The two were her team’s best trackers.

Kwan gave a bow of his head and headed off to get everyone ready.

Shu Wei stood quietly, listening to the whisper of wind, the whirring of gnats, and the twitter of distant birdsong. She imagined the number of predators hidden in the dark forest, while certain of one detail . . .

The true threat to her targets had just arrived.

With everyone ready, Kwan eyed her, awaiting her signal.

Very good
.

She stepped into that shroud of darkness.

Now to end this.

21

May 1, 12:04
P
.
M
. CST

Beijing, China

I have to do something . . .

Maria stood with her back to the arch of windows that overlooked the hybrid habitat. She kept her fist snarled in the collar of Dr. Han’s scrubs and a scalpel held at his neck. From the corner of her eye, she had watched the grate to Kowalski’s small cage begin to rise, exposing him to the beasts below.

The giant silverback still remained squatted on his haunches a yard away, patiently waiting for its meal to be let loose.

Maria searched for a way to help Kowalski. Her gaze settled on the locked cabinet that held a double-barreled tranquilizer rifle. She called over to the surgical team, pressing the scalpel more firmly to Dr. Han’s throat.

“Someone unlock that case!” she ordered.

A figure rushed forward. It was the young nurse who had shown herself to be the most cooperative of the group. She reached the case, tapped a code into its electronic lock, and opened the door.

Maria shoved Dr. Han away. As the surgeon stumbled and fell to his knees, she tossed the scalpel aside and snatched the double-barreled rifle from its rack. She had been trained with such weapons as part of her orientation at the primate center. She quickly checked to see if the rifle was preloaded. She was relieved to find a pair of feathered darts resting in the chambers of the two barrels.

Still, she grabbed and pocketed another pair of capped darts from a tray on the cabinet’s bottom shelf, then secured the rifle and pointed it at the surgical staff. “Stay back,” she warned.

A small groan drew her attention to the operating table. Baako stirred and lifted his bandaged head from the crown of stainless steel that had once trapped his skull. His eyes fluttered as the short-acting sedative cleared his system. Dazed, he rolled and fell off the table, but he had enough wits to catch himself. He landed on all fours and twisted in her direction.

The nurses and surgeons cleared out of his way.

“Baako,” she called to him. “Come to Mama.”

He hooted and scrambled toward her, staying low, still woozy.

Not daring to wait any longer, she swung to the gated casement built into one section of the observation windows. She struggled with the latch, trying to free it while staring below.

By now the door to Kowalski’s cage stood fully open. The big man remained within the shelter, his back to the steel door. The silverback had also stayed put. It still squatted at the threshold, like a cat crouched at a mouse hole, waiting for its prey to run out.

But Maria knew this standoff could not last.

As she continued to fight the latch, Baako reached her side and leaned hard against her hip. Perhaps noting her attention, he lifted his face enough to peer below, too.

“C’mon,” she said, swearing at the damned latch.

The young nurse joined her. She shifted Maria’s panicked hands aside and freed the casement with an experienced series of turns and tugs on the latch. The two-foot-wide window slid open.

“Thank you,” Maria mumbled.

She lifted the rifle through the opening, but she had taken too long.

Down below, Kowalski burst out of his cage.

12:07
P
.
M
.

Bring it, you fucking monkeys . . .

Kowalski dove low through the open door. He had waited as long as possible, knowing the patience of the beast outside would not last forever. When a low rumble of irritation had flowed out of that massive chest, Kowalski took this as a signal. As the silverback lifted an arm and reached toward the cage, Kowalski was already in motion.

He ducked that meaty paw and rolled under the raised arm. Once past the mountainous bulk, he shoved to his feet and leaped away.

Other beasts crowded their leader, but Kowalski’s sudden flight had them momentarily confounded.
Momentarily
being the operative word. Still, some were startled enough—likely still on edge from the blaring sirens—to stumble out of his way. Or maybe they feared the silverback enough not to claim the prize that the massive beast had set his sights upon for these past three hours.

No matter the reason, Kowalski took full advantage of it to break through the cordon of muscle, bone, and teeth and get into the clear.

Behind him, an ear-shattering bellow erupted.

He didn’t have to glance back to know its source. Instead, he sprinted for the section of the habitat that offered the best refuge, where boulders littered the floor amid concrete trees.

A new noise rose in counterpoint to the roar: a heavy thumping.

Kowalski reached the rock-strewn section of the habitat and skidded around, coming to a stop. The silverback stood before the open cage. Thwarted, it had reared up on its hind legs, pounding its wide, leathery chest with both fists in a dramatic display of gorilla rage. Ropes of spittle flew from its lips as it bared razor-sharp teeth evolved to rip flesh from bone.

Panting, Kowalski crouched. He struggled for his next move, expecting that half-ton bulk to come charging in his direction, as unstoppable as a freight train under a full head of steam. He searched for any place to hide, even for a breath or two.

I have to keep clear of that—

Then something barreled into him from behind, shattering his ribs with a cracking flare of agony. The impact tossed him headlong across the floor. He twisted in midair and crashed down onto his uninjured side. Beyond his toes, he spotted a familiar black-furred gorilla, the same one who had confronted Kowalski at the cage door earlier, before being shoved aside by the silverback.

Apparently the bastard still held a grudge
.

12:08
P
.
M
.

The howl of fury echoed up to Maria’s perch at the open casement window. It rose from the dark-furred gorilla hybrid who had bowled into Kowalski, knocking him out of his hiding spot. The beast vaulted over a boulder and dove at Kowalski, going for the kill.

Maria jerked her rifle’s aim from the silverback to the more immediate threat. She fired at the younger male gorilla, but feared she was already too late.

Kowalski rolled to the side at the last moment, just missing getting smashed under the plummeting bulk of the gorilla. Still, as the beast landed, it lashed out with a hand and grabbed Kowalski’s thigh. His body was whipped forward like a rag doll.

Maria centered her rifle and peered through the telescopic sight, unsure if the first dart had struck the beast. She squeezed the trigger again. The rifle blast stung her ears, but she resisted blinking, concentrating. This time she spotted red feathers sticking out of the neck of the gorilla.

The male let go of Kowalski and pawed at its throat, knocking the barb away.

Its face swung up toward her, guessing the source of the assault. It rose to its feet and roared at her—then stumbled back. Tripping a step, it dropped heavily on its haunches.

For the tranquilizing effect to be that fast, her first shot must have also hit it. She hurriedly cracked the rifle open and reached inside her pocket for another load of darts. In her fumbling haste, one of them slipped between her fingers and dropped to her toes. Swearing, she slapped the other one into the weapon’s chamber.

On the floor of the habitat, the young male collapsed to its side, its huge limbs going slack. But that beast wasn’t the only threat.

Before she could finish fully reloading, the silverback bellowed its rage, rising to its full height. Even now Maria balked at its sheer size. While she understood the genetics that had birthed such a monster, her mind still struggled to accept it. She pictured the giant bones she had been shown yesterday, of
Meganthropus
, one of man’s earliest ancestors, and recognized it wasn’t only that hominin’s massive
size
that had been engineered into these hybrids—but also its savage and xenophobic nature.

The silverback lowered to a fist and charged toward Kowalski. The man was still down on all fours, rattled and bruised. There was no way for him to get out of the way in time.

She fought her rifle through the window and fired the one loaded dart at the thundering beast, but the gorilla was moving too fast. She caught sight of a red bolt of feathers ricocheting off the limb of one of those faux trees.

Damn it . . .

She lunged for the other dart abandoned on the floor, but she knew she could never reload in time.

Someone else realized the same.

Before she could stop him, Baako leaped from her side and flung himself headfirst through the window. At the last moment, he hooked a hand on the sill, swung around, then dropped in a series of halting falls toward the floor, catching brief fingerholds on the coarse-hewn rock wall.

Maria called down to him. “Baako! Come back!”

For the first time in his young life, Baako ignored her.

12:09
P
.
M
.

Monk huddled with Kimberly in the empty office. Sergeant Chin guarded the door while the Shaw brothers and Kong kept watch out in the halls.

“How much longer?” Monk asked.

Kimberly tapped furiously at a keyboard. She had already wired and plugged her satellite phone into the computer terminal via a side port. “Okay, I’ve accessed the security cameras. While I can’t shut them down, I can
add
to their feed.”

“Do it.”

She brought up her phone’s video folder and broadcast a stored file into the security camera’s feed. “This should do it.”

Monk nodded, clutching the radio in his hand. He had secured it from a guard whom they had ambushed shortly after entering the facility.

“I’m also going to scroll information at the bottom of the image I’m sending out,” Kimberly said. “It’ll list your radio’s secure channel.”

“You can do that?”

As answer, she simply frowned back at him.

Monk held up his other palm. By now he should’ve known better than to question his partner’s abilities. “Okay, then let’s hope this broadcast reaches the right audience.”

12:10
P
.
M
.

It appears I must do everything myself.

Jiaying Lau leaned on a table, her nose not far from the monitor’s screen. She did her best to ignore the chaos inside the facility’s security hub. She had already fielded calls from the Ministry of State Security and the deputy director of the Academy of Military Science. Word of the security breach had plainly extended beyond the borders of the facility.

She could guess the source of that leak.

Behind her, Chang Sun shouted orders into a radio, lighting a fire under the teams who were searching for the intruders. When he found them—which he would with time—he would certainly use their capture to make himself look good, while undermining her role. She could all but smell the ambition wafting from the sweat on his brow.

Still, she kept her focus on another potential embarrassment, another black mark threatening her record. On the monitor, she had watched everything tipping toward ruin within the vivisection lab. Dr. Crandall had secured a tranquilizer rifle and was attempting to aid her companion in the Ark. The matter should have already played out to its bloody end, a necessary lesson for Maria.

Then, even worse, Baako had leaped through the window and dropped into the heart of the Ark. Jiaying had spent considerable resources to obtain that unique specimen, including losing a valuable covert asset in the process. To end up with her prize torn to pieces by her own hybrids could prove more than disastrous to her career—she could end up with a bullet through her skull for this failure.

She pounded a fist on the table, intending to deal with this situation personally. But before she could turn away, a smaller window popped up in the corner of the monitor. She leaned closer. The new grainy video showed a soldier strapped to a chair. A pistol was pressed to his temple by a captor who stood out of view.